Free Cat Bearing Gifts by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

the intruder, his ears and whiskers flat. Only when the pacing cat turned, startled, and approached him stiff-legged, did Joe laugh and relax. Pan paused, too, tail twitching, his ears going back and up, edgy and questioning.
    â€œWhat?” Joe said. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œI don’t know.” The big tom lowered his ears uncertainly. “Kit’s in trouble, I can feel her fear, she’s scared and alone somewhere out in the night.”
    Joe took a step back. “She’s miles away, up the coast. You can’t know what she’s feeling, what she’s doing.” This kind of talk made his paws sweat.
    Pan drew his lips back. “She’s in some kind of trouble.”
    â€œNightmare,” Joe said. “You fell asleep and dreamed of trouble.” Generally the red tom was a steady fellow, macho and straightforward—until he got off on this perception nonsense beyond all logic and reason.
    But Pan’s amber eyes blazed, he growled deep in his throat and spun around and was gone along an oak branch and in through the dining room window, through the cat door. “The Greenlaws, their cell phone . . .” he said over his shoulder. “Help me find the number.”
    Joe sighed. He was crouched to follow, knowing they’d sound like fools to the Greenlaws with such a call, when car lights came down the street below. They slowed, and Ryan’s red king cab turned into the drive, headlights sweeping the front of the house and up through the oak branches, blazing in Joe’s face. Squinting, he peered over, breathing exhaust as the engine died.
    Ryan emerged from the passenger side, stepped around to the rear bumper and up onto it, reaching up to the overhead rack where the extension ladder was secured. He watched Clyde swing out the driver’s door and move to help her. Why did they need a ladder? They had a key to the house, all the Greenlaws’ close friends had keys. From the dining room, Pan shouted, “ You picked up! Say something. Pedric? Is this Pedric?” Silence, then, “ Pedric, are you all right? Where’s Lucinda?” Another silence, then, “ Who is this? If this isn’t Pedric, who are you? Why do you have Pedric’s phone? Where’s Lucinda? Speak up or I call the cops, they’ll put a trace on you!”
    Joe smiled. He didn’t think MPPD was set up to trace the immediate location of a cell phone but it sounded good. He watched Ryan open the extension ladder, lean it against the edge of the tree house, and climb nimbly up. Joe waited until his housemate had swung up onto the platform and switched on her flashlight, then stepped out into its beam. The eerie nightglow of his eyes made her catch her breath.
    â€œDid you have to do that, sneak up like that?” she asked shakily.
    â€œI’m sneaking? What are you doing climbing up here in the middle of the night like some—”
    â€œLike some cat burglar?” she said, laughing. She knelt and grabbed him up and hugged him. Her hugs always embarrassed him, but they made him purr, too.
    Putting him down again, she fished a plastic bag from her pocket and reached across him to snag one of Kit’s well-used pillows from the untidy pile. He watched her drop it into the plastic bag and seal it up with a twisty. He looked over the edge at the king cab where Rock was hanging out the open window, whining softly. He looked toward the house where Pan was on the phone, and looked again at Ryan. Now there was silence from the house. Joe watched Pan emerge through the cat door, ears back, tail lashing, his tabby forehead creased with worry, unsettled by that distraught phone conversation.
    â€œCome on, Pan,” Ryan said, swinging onto the ladder and down, frowning up at Pan there above her. “Come on, we’re headed up the coast.” She looked worriedly at the red tom. “It’s Kit,” she said softly. “She